“Oh, the poor, dear man,” said Dicey Pease. As they undid the corpse’s nightshirt, a smell issued forth. Noses were crinkled, then relaxed. “The Milos,” said Libby’s mother.
Usually sober, Pansy Graham was a retarded man living on a stipend left
by his mother. Since the Great Depression inflation had dogged his footsteps
as his mother portion, meagerly though dutifully dispersed in a small brown
envelope by Ephraim Crouch at the Merrill Trust, shriveled and shrank.
Pansy Graham’s sanitary habits had been well-defined. In death as in life
he was preceded by a not unpleasant smell which Dicey identified as the
yellow bar soap provided by the Daughters of Milo. The women rapped tentatively
and called out his name. Just in case they might have surprised him naked.
Just in case he had been miraculously restored to life.
The children were shooed from the room. “Let’s get him ready.” By ready the local women meant getting Pansy stripped, washed, into a presentable suit of clothes, into a box, then into the ground.
The 5th Libby the Quilter
story
coming in 2011
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